Oracle Unveils Health Care Analytics Application for Supply Chain

Oracle has introduced a new addition to its business
intelligence software suite for health care. Called OPSCA
(Oracle Healthcare Provider Supply Chain Analytics), the application will
enable health care organizations to manage their supply chain and reduce costs,
the company reports.
Part of the Oracle Enterprise Healthcare Analytics suite, OPSCA
allows health care companies to control procurement as well as sourcing
and supplier contracts. With the analytics capabilities of OPSCA,
Oracle aims
to add transparency to a health care organization's supply chain
transactions.
The software provides a complete view of expenditures to allow
companies to identify areas in which to trim costs.

The application features prebuilt dashboards and predefined analysis
engines to allow health care executives to avoid extra coding or
configuration when managing their supply chain.

Transforming health care supply costs is a key benefit of the OPSCA
software, according to Neil de Crescenzo, senior vice president and
general manager for Oracle Health Sciences.
"With supply costs running as high as 45 percent of a health
system's total operating expense, supply chain processes offer a rich
target
for transformation," de Crescenzo, senior vice president and general
manager for Oracle Health Sciences, said in a statement.
Optimizing a supply chain has yet to happen for health care companies because of a lack of "actionable insight" to evaluate it,
he says.
"Oracle Healthcare Provider Supply Chain Analytics addresses this
challenge by delivering powerful, yet easy-to-use business
intelligence and enterprise performance analytics capabilities that
enable health care providers to assess supply chain performance,
identify
opportunities for improvement and analyze the success of optimization
initiatives," de Crescenzo said.
Announced on Feb. 14, OPSCA allows companies to manage their
performance against budget targets and indicators. Meanwhile, the app
will take
over some of the manual analysis done by workers, who will be free for
"value-added projects," Oracle reports.
Other software companies that offer health care supply chain management applications include Tecsys, which
streamlines the supply chain for hospitals, and MHS
(Management Health Solutions), maker of a mobile supply chain application.
Oracle's Enterprise Healthcare Analytics suite enables health care providers to keep track of their clinical, financial,
administrative and research data, the company reports.
Also included in analytics suite is Healthcare Operating Room
Analytics, which provides a complete view of operating room efficiency
using 200 prebuilt customizable operational efficiency measures,
according to Oracle.
Another application in the group, Oracle Healthcare Data Warehouse
Foundation, provides a customizable, comprehensive data warehouse
model to handle BI, data mining and performance management while
lowering overall costs.
In another product rollout geared toward the supply chain, on July 26 Oracle introduced its Pedigree
and Serialization Manager application to fight the spread of counterfeit drugs in the pharmaceutical supply chain.
Oracle's health care analytics software is built on Oracle's Database application as well as the company's Fusion
Middleware set of infrastructure tools.
Enterprise Healthcare Analytics also incorporates Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, which provides analytics and
reporting capabilities on a unified architecture.
With OPSCA built on Oracle's existing analytics and BI suite, the
product has potential to be a solid tool, according to Shahid Shah,
CEO of IT consulting firm Netspective Communications and author of the Healthcare IT Guy blog.
"Oracle has a long history in the health care industry, and lots of
enterprise health customers, especially payers and pharma, use
their software," Shah wrote in an e-mail to eWEEK. "They have some
special capabilities in this area due to such a large customer base."

Brian T. Horowitz is a freelance technology and health writer as well as a copy editor. Brian has worked on the tech beat since 1996 and covered health care IT and rugged mobile computing for eWEEK since 2010. He has contributed to more than 20 publications, including Computer Shopper, Fast Company, FOXNews.com, More, NYSE Magazine, Parents, ScientificAmerican.com, USA Weekend and Womansday.com, as well as other consumer and trade publications. Brian holds a B.A. from Hofstra University in New York.